8 beers over the course of 7 days and your wife is worried?
really?
dude take her to the nastiest dive you can find, you know the one with the old dude passed out at the bar with piss running down his leg? yeah thats the one.
the level of non issue that is your current drinking “issue” is whats alarming.
O my god, you should send her to my house for a couple of weeks! She’d think you were a saint! Your drinking sounds like kids stuff, and I’m not being silly about that. I respect that you are concerned about her feelings, but man… That’s not a drinking problem.
I’d sit down and ask her what exactly bothers her about your drinking. It is the frequency? Is it the drink? It it the way you smell or the way she percieves you as behaving afterwards? If she doesn have preconcieved notions about what a beer does to someone, then she might be more likely to see it in you. Especially if one beer affects her more strongly than it does you. If your father, as you said, had problems with alcohol she may feel the need to ‘protect’ you even more strongly.
I live in a ‘drink culture’ (Scotland) and have had some experience with the stereotypical functioning alcoholic. I don’t consider my current drinking excessive, but when I returned to the US for Thanksgiving about four years ago I had my mother smack half a glass of wine out of my hand. Why? My face was red from running around, cooking and hanging over an open oven basting a turkey all day. Or, if you’re my mother, it was red from ‘the gin blossoms’. Three years later I find out that my family has consisted of some fairly evil alcoholics…that I had never been told about. I was just expected by my mother to know never to touch a drop. The wine, of course, was for my aunt and my boyfriend, who aren’t family by blood.
So…long story short, talk to her and find out if there is some reason that is solid in her mind why you shouldn’t. But don’t make it sound like it’s all in her head.
I have to admit–I’m practically a teetotaller by inclination and upbringing, and I think I’d have issues with someone drinking a beer everyday or nearly every day.
Intellectually, I understand this is a trivial amount of alcohol being consumed, not indicative of a problem . . .
Emotionally, I don’t get social drinking, and would be disturbed by this rate of consumption, if it continued over a long span of time.
I’m not sure that “repeatedly demonstrating an ability to enjoy a single, non-intoxicating serving of beer without repeating it unto insensibility with time out to make a complete ass out of myself would eventually be reassuring” especially if there were children or power tools in the mix.
My inclination, which I don’t have any proof would actually work on either me or the wife of the OP, is to suggest reducing the frequency of the beer drinking-- to like every other day or every third day. Do little things which make it look less like a “ritual” at the end of the day and more like a casual habit.
And expect that changing opinions on matters like this may be a long term project.
What the others have said - talk to her. I suspect she thinks that you aren’t going to stop at a beer or two.
As for the frequency, the last time I saw my neurologist he asked during the usual history questioning how many days a week I drank alcohol. I said seven. His eyebrow went up a little and he asked how many drinks a night. I told him, truthfully, one beer or glass of wine a night, maybe two on the weekend. His expression went back to unconcerned and he made a note of that with no further comment. (These days I’m only drinking that maybe one or two nights a week as part of an attempt to keep my weight down.)
Bobo T - we need a beer together. You stole my answer 
It’s not the current level, it’s the direction and concerns about whether you are actually in control of your condition. You need to prove to her that you don’t have a problem. Go dry for two weeks, at home and going out. That’ll settle a lot of things both for you and for her.
She definitely has a right to be concerned. Do not wave it off. Drinking everyday is not a good thing. (Which is what the liquor industry spends so much money on well publicized “studies” that claim it’s a good thing.)
I think she’s out of line. She has a problem with alcohol…not you. She needs to deal with it. One beer a day is not a drinking problem on anyone’s radar. As others have said, she needs to spend some time with people who truly do have problems with booze.
We have friends who asked us to help them move. We brought beer (which is as important as a truck when you’re moving). The guy’s wife had a shit fit and said there would be no drinking while we helped them. At which point Mr. K said there’d be no moving without beer.
Guess who won? 
Well, just to play the devil’s advocate: Alcoholism runs in families. Your dad is an alcoholic. You drink everyday. She expresses her concern. You blow her off.
No one decides to be an alcoholic. It creeps up on you. Drinking everyday sure seems to be inline with a typical path towards alcoholism. Is beer more important to you than your wife’s concerns? If so, then I think you might be heading down the dreaded path. If not, why not drink drink something else?
Why would you go out of your way to turn this into a bigger problem?
I agree with most of the other posters here. The OP doesn’t sound like an alcoholic at all. Larry Mudd, I’d talk to the your about why she’s concerned and explain that your situation isn’t similar to whoever is concerning her; mmaybe pointing out that you’re having one beer a night because you enjoy it, not because of some problem.
You shouldn’t drink any more. Of course, you shouldn’t drink any less.
I can’t say I agree with the posters who insist that the wife’s concerns must be addressed no matter what. Some concerns are so unreasonable as to be justifiably dismissed.
Just because Larry doesn’t try to prove something by going dry for some arbitary amount of time, that doesn’t mean he has a problem. It means he recognizes that she’s the one with the problem, and chooses not to encourage that.
Maybe so.
But in a marriage, her problems are his problems and vice versa.
This question, to me, is less about beer than it is about how a couple deals with an issue on which they hold strong but differing views. One side or the other “giving in” will not solve anything in the long run.
It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: These two need to have a real conversation about this that isn’t an “I’m right, you’re wrong” argument and does not include any passive-aggressive bullshit.
That strikes me as petty and childish. Surely the OP is neither.
Nobody likes to have their concerns poo-poohed.
It sounds as if your wife’s concerns are unwarranted. The problem with a fear like she possibly has, is that it’s one thing for your ‘head’ to know that a fear is unfounded, and quite another thing to be able to deal with it emotionally. I suggest, as others here have, that you make a sincere effort to assauge her fears so that your behavior won’t be causing a rift between you. I don’t necessarily mean stop with the nightly beer; I mean sit her down and gently explain what the beer-a-night seems like to you, listen to what her fears are, and try to help her feel better about it - work through it together.
It’s not a matter of ‘encouraging bad behavior’. Irrational fears are difficult to deal with. She needs a little help, here.
If she refuses to talk about it, or you don’t make progress after a sincere effort, then ignore the comments - but things aren’t going to get any better, IMO, until you’re both comfortable with the beer-a-night.
That goes for any issues which come up in a relationship. Both parties have to get OK with a thing. But you probably already knew that.
This.
A successful marriage is about communicating, compromise and sharing.
Why not drink less and have sex instead - I think that would be relaxing! 
Except that she’s, ya know, his wife, so her concerns kinda matter.
Not that I’m saying it’s a valid concern, because IMO it is not. But her feelings should still matter more than a nightly beer. If they don’t, that IS indicative of a problem. Maybe with alcohol, maybe with the marriage, but either way… problem.
You don’t have to give up your nightly beer. But you should acknowledge her concerns, explain why you don’t think it’s a problem, try to reach an accord. Dismissing her is not helpful.
I don’t think people are ever good judges of their own behavior. My paternal grandmother was a crazy, drunken, theiving alcoholic who hurt everyone around her until she drank herself to death about 12 years ago. When I say she had a problem I am not exaggerating, she stole from people in our family and pawned their valued possessions to have money to buy booze.
My father grew up watching this and for most of his adult life stuck to 1 or 2 drinks a week. After my grandmother died and the evidence of what alcohol can do to you wasn’t in his face every day he made it a habit to have a drink after work every day. Fast forward to the present and he is having at least 6 drinks a day, starting with a shot of Bailey’s in his coffee in the morning and ending with a gin and tonic before bed. When he came to visit me last year and found that I don’t have alcohol in the house he managed not to drink for a whole day but woke up the next morning with a crippling headache and the first think on his to-do list was find a liquor store near me so he could get his fix. He has gotten to the point where most of his stories start with, “I was on my way to the liquor store and…” or “I was a few drinks into the evening when…” but he doesn’t think it is a problem because he manages to hold down a good job and provide for his family. 5 years from now I don’t think that will be possible anymore and I will be glad that I live 1500 miles away so I don’t come home to find my TV and stereo missing because he needed a bottle of gin to get through his day.
Watching this behavior and being told by him that it is no big deal and that people are being too concerned over what he thinks amounts to nothing breaks my heart. I wish he had listened to us 4 years ago when my brother and I started telling him he had a problem because now he isn’t going to change until he hits rock bottom and at 50 years old I really think rock bottom will be homelessness and/or death. Alcoholism is an easy thing to avoid picking up and an incredibly difficult thing to let go of once you have let it take root in your life. If your wife has noticed that you went from one drink a week to one drink a day that is an 86% net increase in your alcohol intake. It may not be a problem yet but it may turn into a problem before you realize what has happened. Please listen to your wife and talk about her concerns. She might be overreacting or she might be seeing the slippery slope you are about to slide down and it is worth talking it out with her before dismissing her concerns.
Acknowledge her concerns as her concerns. Apologize for causing her stress on this topic. Explain that one beer a day is not excessive, and that you do enjoy your beer, but that you are willing to reach a compromise if she is indeed concerned - a week every month without alcohol to show you aren’t addicted, a few nights a week that are non-alcohol nights. Because you value her more than you value one beer a night.
I would not dismiss her concerns, unless she is prone to unreasonable nagging. And if she is prone to unreasonable nagging, then the beer isn’t the issue and you should see a marriage counselor.
Sorry, what I typed wasn’t precisely what I meant. I do think her concerns should be addressed, and discussed. They should not be ignored.
But they shouldn’t not automatically be cause for a change in Larry’s behavior. Unreasonable concerns from your spouse deserve acknowledgement, but they don’t necessarily deserve action. And that’s what I mean by saying they are “justifiably dismissed”.
I see nothing wrong with saying “[wife], I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t believe it’s the problem you’re making it out to be. No reasonable person would consider one drink a day to be a problem, and I see no need to alter my behavior. I hope you understand.” I would expect that to be the final word between me and my own wife, no matter which one of us was the one saying it. But, then again, neither of us has ever had a problem telling the other when they’re being unreasonable, or being told the same. I recognize not everyone can operate that way.
Really??
You’d tell your wife she’s being unreasonable and expect that’ll be the end of that?
More power to ya… I guess…